Body Culture and Nation Building: The History of Gymnastics in Germany in the Period of its Foundation as a Nation‐State

This essay examines the part played by the German gymnastics movement in and for the process of nation building in Germany, especially during the 1860s, the period when the German nation-state, das 'Deutsche Reich' (German Empire), was founded, a process which culminated in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. The article has two parts: the first analyses and describes the contribution to the process of nation building of German 'Turnen' in clubs ('Vereine') and schools, in education, politics and in German society generally in the second half of the nineteenth century; the second part examines this process in a more theoretical and sociological perspective. Referring to the concept of figurational sociology and particularly to the concept of established outsider figurations, the article will attempt to explain why the body culture of the German Turner Movement developed in a specific way.